Sometimes you’re in the mood for a read that’ll make your heart race. But what to choose? A pulse-pounding thriller? A steamy romance? You can have it all, my friend, with romantic thrillers. There are tons of romantic thriller tropes and plot premises, but “the bodyguard” is especially intriguing —…
BookTribMay 20, 2020
For generations, we’ve been told to stay away from the woods. The Brothers Grimm warned us about witches who lurk in the shadows, and the wolves waiting for their next victim. But there are other dangers to be found in the forest — monsters, ghosts, bloodthirsty cults, serial killers and…
Cameron KimballOctober 20, 2020
Summer is on the horizon — we can feel it! Spring is having some seventy-degree days here on the East Coast and that means that the beach is on our planner. Maybe not this month, but next month for sure. Day trips, weekend getaways, week-long relaxation fests; we are all…
Kate MorettiApril 1, 2021
Having a journalist as the main character is good news and bad news. The good news is that it solves one of the trickiest problems in crime fiction writing: if your character is not in law enforcement of some kind (or at least a private detective) and they come across…
Hank Phillippi RyanJuly 29, 2021
It’s almost as if the universe designed hotels for storytelling. Floor after floor, room after room, each one numbered like chapters. Each one populated, for some random amount of time, with people who are going somewhere, wanting something, hoping for something, escaping something. They’re private. They have weird keys that…
Hank Phillippi RyanNovember 12, 2020
Calling all mystery fans! This selection of novels features the darkest elements of the genre, including characters who mysteriously go missing. When bodies begin to vanish, these novels come to life. Rich with suspense, each of these books will have you fully embroiled in the twisting plot lines. Read on…
Gabby TorrentiNovember 23, 2020
When reading psychological thrillers, you quickly learn that you can’t trust anyone or anything. Certainly not what the characters say and do, and especially not your own interpretation of what’s really happening. Sometimes you can’t even trust the narrator. An unreliable — or even unstable — narrator adds an extra…
Cameron KimballDecember 1, 2020
David Baldacci is at his absolute best in the dazzling Daylight (Grand Central), the latest in his FBI special agent Atlee Pine series. Only this time, she’s joined by another of Baldacci’s sterling creations in the form of military investigator John Puller. In lesser hands, such a setup would have…
Jon LandNovember 30, 2020
What is it about California that makes it such rich stomping grounds for crime and mystery? Whether it's the moody fog of San Fran or the seedy underbelly of LA, California teems with a sense of danger and lawlessness in our collective imaginations that harkens back to a burgeoning Gold…
BookTribOctober 14, 2020
https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/meta-fiction-feat..jpg The question came to me in my admiration of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: how does someone write novelistic nonfiction when many of the main characters are dead? How can you write a true-crime novel if you don’t know the truth? And how can you ever find it? I’ll…
Hank Phillippi RyanOctober 22, 2020
One of the first things I thought about when I started writing crime fiction was “whydunnit.” What would it take, I wondered as I began my first thriller, to push me to decide to kill someone? What is a believable motive for murder? Revenge, I thought. Oh, yes. We’ve all…
Hank Phillippi RyanJanuary 30, 2020
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s stellar Crooked River (Grand Central), the nineteenth to feature FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast, shows why this is the best mystery series going today. The premise is enough to make the likes of Jeffery Deaver and Thomas Harris blush: dozens of identical blue shoes are…
Jon LandFebruary 17, 2020
It’s a seething microcosm of competition, envy, manipulation and the battle for supremacy. It’s high school. And those crowded classrooms — or the privileged halls of prep school — coupled with aspiration and aggression and enforced proximity make the halls of academe perfect places to set a novel of suspense.…
Hank Phillippi RyanMarch 5, 2020